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Christie's Sleuths: Poirot
65 Plays2 hours ago
Hercule Poirot is Agatha Christie's most famous sleuth, and the last one in Brook and Sarah's series exploring her characters. In this episode they discuss his origins and why he continues to be popular.
Discussed and mentioned
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) Agatha Christie
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975) Agatha Christie
At the Villa Rose (1910) A. E. W. Mason
Hickory Dickory Dock (1955) Agatha Christie
The Big Four (1927) Agatha Christie
Alibi (1928) Michael Morton
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989-2013) ITV Television Series
Related episodes
Christie's Sleuths: Superintendent Battle (released January 23, 2024)
Agatha Christie Characters: Hastings (released March 11, 2025)
Agatha’s Characters: Ariadne Oliver (released November 12, 2024)
For more information
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
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Order Life or Delft by Brook and Sarah
For a full episode transcript, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/christies-sleuths-poirot/
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Transcript
Introduction: Meet Sarah and Brooke
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Hi, Brooke. Hi, Sarah.
Conclusion of Poirot Series
00:00:21
Speaker
Well, I can't quite believe that it's time to talk about the very last Agatha Christie sleuth. Yeah, we've worked our way through her different characters that serve as as her primary sleuths or supporting some of those um other characters.
00:00:44
Speaker
And now it's time to talk about Hercule Poirot.
Poirot's Literary Journey Begins
00:00:49
Speaker
That's right. Today we're taking on that mystery icon. And I do feel a little bittersweet about this because this is a project we've been working on for quite a while now. But we knew right from the start that we would save Hercule Poirot for last. It's only right that the sleuth that started it all closes out our series.
00:01:11
Speaker
So he appeared in 33 novels, two plays, and 51 short stories. And some of the numbers are a little skewed. Sometimes it's 52 or 53 short stories. But between 1920 and 1975, Agatha Christie was publishing stories about this detective.
00:01:30
Speaker
And like many of her other characters that we've covered before, Poirot's biography is developed gradually across the stories. He's introduced first as a former Belgian police officer who's living in England as a refugee following the First World War. And this was in her very first book, The Mysterious Affair at Stiles.
Influences and Inspirations Behind Poirot
00:01:53
Speaker
And then his final appearance is in Curtin, Poirot's Last Case. And this was published in 1975, the last book that she published during her lifetime.
00:02:05
Speaker
Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time, Hercules Popot from the author Marcy Belloc Lounds and Frank Howell Evans' character, Monsieur Jules Poiré, retired French police officer living in London.
00:02:24
Speaker
And interestingly, Poiré was accompanied by Captain Harry Haven, so This is very similar to Captain Hastings.
The Essence of Poirot's Character
00:02:33
Speaker
Another obvious influence is that of Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes.
00:02:41
Speaker
Poirot also bears a striking resemblance to A.E. Mason's fictional detective Inspector Hanad, and he first appeared in a 1910 novel entitled At the Villa Rose, And this predates Stiles by 10 years. And I don't know about you, Sarah, but I think this lineup is pure gold because it just gives us a biography of what k Christie must have been reading in the years leading up to the beginning of her author career.
00:03:12
Speaker
As far as his style of detection, he is extremely dignified, meticulous, and very vain. And although these traits sometimes serve as a comic device, it is also important to note and to demonstrate the way that he approaches ah ah crime scene. He's very cerebral and psychological. He relies on his little gray cells rather than anything like science or brute force.
00:03:42
Speaker
And unlike detectives who might chase footprints, Poirot solves crimes by understanding the human mind, analyzing inconsistency, and connecting seemingly trivial details.
Poirot's Iconic Traits
00:03:56
Speaker
He also likes to use his ability to get suspects to talk as well. He's quite disarming. He will play little games such as telling lies or pretending that he doesn't have great English skills. in order to get suspects to open up. And that's also a lot of fun.
00:04:15
Speaker
And does he have quirks? Perhaps even more famous than the man himself is his mustache. It's luxurious, immense, and delicately groomed. It has basically a character of its own.
00:04:30
Speaker
Another quirk is Poirot's green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining like a cat's. And this happens a lot when he's struck by an idea.
00:04:41
Speaker
And he loves his dark hair, which in later stories he begins dying so that it continues to be dark and lush. His outfits are also rather quirky. He has a very unique style of dress, patent leather shoes, is very ah meticulous, as I said before.
00:05:02
Speaker
And then later, these things fall out of fashion, which is a quirk in and of itself.
Evolution of Poirot in Novels
00:05:08
Speaker
Poirot suffers from seasickness. He always carries a pocket watch, and he is very particular about his personal finances.
00:05:18
Speaker
His role in Christie's books does change over time. By the mid-1930s, Christie had perfected a style of story where he spends much of the first third of the novel off the page. And in some books, like Hickory Dickory Dock, Poirot is on the page even less.
00:05:38
Speaker
And, you know, whether this is because of just changing times in the taste of readers or k Christie's own tiring of the character, which we can talk about, it's kind of unclear, but it's definitely a pattern we see. And As Poro ages and we do see intense cultural changes such as those in the 1960s, Poro effectively retires.
00:06:02
Speaker
He concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases and reading detective novels. His death and funeral occur in the novel Curtain, but this was not the first time that Hastings attends a funeral for his best friend.
00:06:20
Speaker
In the Big Four of 1927, Poirot fakes his death and hosts a funeral in order to launch a surprise attack on the Big Four.
The Finale: Curtain as Poirot's Last Case
00:06:30
Speaker
Hercule Poirot is the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of the New York Times.
00:06:38
Speaker
Well, thank you, Brooke. I think there's so much to say about this character. And, you know, you were describing the way he gets suspects to talk. And we see that in other detectives.
00:06:59
Speaker
And, you know, I think there's lot that see him that we see in that we see elsewhere Yes, yes, I agree. i felt in a way not really knowing where to begin with him because there's so much to say um just about her own work with this detective. But then, like you said, the way that he's influenced detective fiction,
Poirot's Unique Character Archetype
00:07:23
Speaker
you know, for over a century now. One example, i think, is the fact that he is almost the prototype for that quirky character, isn't he? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:07:34
Speaker
um ah And that is perhaps not fair. i need to look into some of those other sleuths that I mentioned that were influences on k Christie, but certainly in the sense of his popularity and how many people read him. And then authors could recognize how much ah readers really enjoyed the idea of this quirky character.
00:08:01
Speaker
It's different too, because i feel like Sherlock Holmes is quirky in a way, but we're never meant to chuckle or poke fun at Sherlock. But we have that invitation Poirot and I think, you know, sleuths after that.
00:08:16
Speaker
I think you're right. Poirot is, is um he's a little bit comical. i He takes himself seriously, but also
Strategic Arrogance of Poirot
00:08:26
Speaker
is playful.
00:08:27
Speaker
Right? Like, he you know, he's very particular, as you described, about what he wears, about his mustache, his hair. And so I guess there are some things for him that would be sacred you can't make fun of. But...
00:08:42
Speaker
he is He's pretty playful in a lot of the short stories and and the books that that he features in. I agree. And sometimes when I'm reading a passage where he says something, ah introduces himself as the greatest detective in the world, um on the one hand, i think he very much means it.
00:09:04
Speaker
But on the other hand, there's this undercurrent that he knows that's how that how that's going to come off. to the Right? He's doing it intentionally too. So yeah, definitely some playfulness. You see that with his best friend Hastings. even though sometimes he's a little dismissive of Hastings, I do think that they have some fun banter at times.
00:09:27
Speaker
You know, even that kind of arrogance that he has, you know, calling himself the best detective. I wonder if that's not part of his strategy to throw people off a little bit, right? Because then they're focused on what he's just said and not the questions that he's asking or the, you know, the, the little slips that, that they make in, uh, in their answers.
00:09:54
Speaker
I think you're right. I think it's very intentional. And that's just
Christie's Relationship with Poirot
00:09:58
Speaker
so fun. And it's fun to think that Agatha Christie ah thought that through, right? hu Well, and and that she thought through his death, right? She wrote Curtain in the Second World War. That's exactly right.
00:10:19
Speaker
on the On the Christie estate web website, it talks about how um she wrote it ah during the Second World War as a gift for her daughter should she not survive the bombings. And it was kept in a safe for over 30 years. And that was her plan.
00:10:40
Speaker
And she went on to write other stories featuring him. after that, but she knew she had this ending for him. That's right. And I think, you know, as much as I know she tired of writing about him, she obviously cared about him because she didn't want his story to not have an ending. She didn't want to pass away and then not have a a cap on his story. So I think that the truth was she was very fond of him in her own way. We get a little bit of a, of a behind the scenes, I guess, ah telling of how she felt about Poirot when we read her other character, Ariadne Oliver's,
00:11:28
Speaker
ah discussion on the sleuth that she writes about. So this is a fictional character who has a fictional ah author career and her detective is named Sven Hearson and he was a vegetarian Finnish detective. So we have Ariadne Oliver having the same sort of quirky character as Agatha Christie does. And she tells some funny stories that she doesn't know why she made him so quirky. It's quite annoying that she has to. She said, I don't even know anything about the Finns. And here I am having to write this character. And so we can extrapolate and know that Christie was feeling that way about making this very specific, unique, quirky character that could sometimes be a little bit difficult to write.
Challenges and Consistency in Poirot's Development
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, i I think you're right. She kind of had that like, I'm not, I'm not going to say love hate with him, but i mean, he paid the bills.
00:12:32
Speaker
Right. But I wonder if she felt like she kind of um painted herself into a corner with him because the, you know, the things that we know about him, the.
00:12:46
Speaker
He's Belgian, his mustache, his his dress, he's got an egg shaped head. They don't give her a lot of. flexibility for him to develop very much right and I know that's one of the criticisms that she faced was that her characters were you know there there wasn't a lot of character development but I think that that's one of the reasons that she endures is that you can pick up a Christy from any point in her library and ah you know what you're going to get
00:13:24
Speaker
her Yes. It's a very um comforting, it's hard to, so I almost called it a series. Of course, it isn't a series. These are all standalones. But I have that series feeling when I talk about Poirot novels because of that feeling of knowing what to expect. And I think that that can also explain some of the tiresomeness of writing it. i've we You hear a lot of authors who talk about, you know, I'm five, 10, however many books deep in a series. And they've sort of grown tired of the idea. But with this being Christie's mainstay character, her primary character, ah it was it was kind of obligation to continue writing him.
Sophia Hannah's Poirot Continuations
00:14:14
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:14:16
Speaker
What about Sophie Hannah's books that feature Poirot? So those were commissioned by the Christie estate, right? She was asked to write these books.
00:14:29
Speaker
And I know they are very polarizing. People either flat out reject, no, nobody else should be touching this character,
00:14:40
Speaker
Or I fall in the side of like, I actually like the books. It's kind of nice um to be able to read something new featuring this character. And in that, he has a different um companion. It's Edward Catchpool with a lot of the same kind of dynamic that we see with him and Hastings. I think that Sophie Hanna has done the best job you possibly can because she didn't try, she didn't change him in any great way, just as he was ah somewhat static character for Agatha Christie.
00:15:21
Speaker
um You know, she picked up that up and has really kind of kept those enduring qualities about him. But I understand we see that in other series that have been taken over and continued. It's going to be polarizing, especially by those, you know, diehard fans.
Adaptations of Poirot
00:15:43
Speaker
Brooke, what about adaptations? Because I know there are several different versions on screen. Yeah, we've talked about other characters that haven't had many adaptations or they get written out. Superintendent Battle was written out of many of the books in their TV or film adapt adaptations, but Poirot definitely has the most out of any of Christie's characters.
00:16:15
Speaker
The first actor to portray him was Charles Lawton, and he appeared on the West End in a 1928 play called Alibi. And this was an adaptation, a rewriting of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. So that was the first time we saw Poirot on stage. And probably the most famous is David Suchet,
00:16:39
Speaker
ah portrayed the detective on television. But, um you know, maybe this is me taking the easy way out just because I'm feeling a little melancholy to to be finishing up our series. But what do you think, Sarah, if we plan a future episode to talk about the adaptations, the games, all the way that Poirot has expanded into the world? Because I think there's a whole nother conversation there.
00:17:08
Speaker
I
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
00:17:09
Speaker
think you're right. And i I love the idea of being able to continue to speak about him. So yeah, let's hold that for another episode.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, that would be great. Well, Brooke, thank you for this conversation today about one of, if not the most famous detectives Of course, Sarah. This was great as usual. And thank you for joining us today, listeners, on Clued in Mystery.
00:17:43
Speaker
Before we go, we have a question of the week for you. What is your favorite Poirot novel? Until next time, I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:17:55
Speaker
Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app.
00:18:09
Speaker
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